David Berger The Los Angeles City Attorney Race

Independent thoughts on the most important election in the history of Los Angeles

I’M ENDORSING TRUTANICH !

Most people think the City Attorney is only involved with crime in the city, however, while fighting crime is an important part of the City Attorney's duties there are many more duties that touch the quality of life in the city.

•Decisions the City Attorney makes influences development throughout the city.
•Community plans are interpreted by the City Attorney.
•Traffic plans, such as the Pico/Olympic plan, are given the green light by the City Attorney.

If we allow a City Attorney who is in the pocket of developers to take power, get used to sitting in MORE traffic from MORE out-of-control development.

Jack Weiss tried and failed to win the primary election, and now must face Carmen Trutanich in the May 19, 2009 General Election. I hope you will browse this site to learn more of why we cannot allow Jack Weiss to be City Attorney.

The crowd at the Trutanich Campaign Victory Party look at the results. Trutanich wins by 11.5% - it’s not even close.

At around midnight the election results confirmed what the good guys had hoped and prayed for, that voters would elect Carmen ‘Nuch’ Trutanich; a qualified, experienced and honorable City Attorney.

Across town, the Jack Weiss campaign were visibly shocked at the way their multi-million dollar campaign of negative ads and misleading claims of achievement had failed to impress an electorate who were clearly troubled by Jack Weiss’s failures and ethically poor record.

It’s a great day for Los Angeles, a great day for democracy, and a great day for the forces of good.

PRIMARY ELECTION RESULTS

COUNTDOWN

DAYS

TO THE START

OF A NEW ERA

IN LOS ANGELES

WHEN

CARMEN

TRUTANICH

WILL BE SWORN IN

AS

CITY ATTORNEY

Latest News on My Blog

Sign up for my email alerts

The March 2009 primary election surprised many who had predicted a ‘business as usual‘ result.

Jack Weiss expected a cakewalk to victory and spent a jaw-dropping $1.7M in misleading tv adverts and phony mailers to try to convince Los Angelenos that he was not a lackluster photo-op poser who tries to claim every success as his personal achievement, and every failure as either being ‘hype’ or the fault of another. He failed. He got 36% of the vote, well short of the 50% plus one vote he needed.

Carmen Trutanich, with one third of the money raised by Weiss, came in a respectable second place and garnered 28% of the vote.

The shock wave through City Hall was palpable; never before had a City insider like Weiss been so roundly drubbed by the electorate

Weiss had the money, the Mayor, and the Chief of Police on his side, and yet he failed to deliver.

One thing Weiss did not have, and never will have, is integrity.

Weiss’s legacy of corruption, inattentiveness to his constituents, arrogance towards ordinary residents and his 38% absence record from City Hall business dogged him throughout the primary campaign, and will continue to do so in the general election.

In the primary campaign, Weiss simply ignored the damning facts about his candidacy. He avoided having to answer awkward questions about his relationship with ‘special interests’ like developers and contractors who funneled illegal campaign contributions to him, by simply failing to attend candidate forums where he could be questioned.

Instead, Weiss proclaimed himself to be the ‘experienced prosecutor,’ trying to use the ‘Big Lie’ theory of propaganda to bootstrap his brief and lackluster career as a federal prosecutor into something more akin to a superhero.

The problem for Jack Weiss is that when questions were asked about how many jury trials Weiss had actually prosecuted, he said “About 8.” Not, “8,” not “At least 8,” nor even “Exactly 8.”

The equivocal nature of Weiss’s answer caused further research into records of Weiss’s trials. The results of that research showed only 2 trials in his six-year career. Indeed, Weiss’s website highlighted (perhaps foolishly) one case; the Openheimer Case. That’s a case where the ‘experienced prosecutor’ succeeded in jailing a former Mouseketeer for 3 months. I’m sure we can all feel safe in the hands of Jack the Mouse-Catcher!

Weiss also sent out phony voter guides showing him as a republican in a truly desperate move to try to appeal to confused voters who did not associate the name “Weiss” with corruption and bogus glory claims.

Weiss failed by every imaginable measure to do anything but win over a handful of voters who do not know his record.

As the campaign for the general election gets underway, Weiss can expect to have a much harder job to hand on to his 36%, and there is every likelihood that most if not all of the 64% who voted for ABW (Anyone But Weiss) will do the same thing on May 19, 2009.

Ridding City Hall of a failed career politician like Jack Weiss will send a powerful message to the remainder of the elected officials who rely on incumbency as a guarantee of re-election and a free pass on accountability.